Chewin the Easter candy...

Sitting here munching on Easter candy... why.. cause I am too tired to go find food... Can someone bring me some? My fingers are tired.

We decided today was the day to go through all the boxes in the garage and get stuff out for a garage sale. Seems we don't have a lot of anything in particular... a massive amount of bags of all type and size... a bunch of empty game boxes .. but not much.. There are a few things on the back porch that need to come around .. but not today... We ended up emptying 20 plus bins. I would say 40% went in the trash 30% was set aside for the garage sale and 30% needs to be gone through again then put away or shredded.  It was daunting.... but clearer overall.

Tomorrow will be go through the set aside stuff... and clean out an inside room. That I am not looking forward to. My foray yesterday evening after work was just enough to start me drinking.... hahahaha...

Now..what I did come across... and it was interesting because my oldest ( real old ) and goodly friend had just asked me what I had drawn lately....

I found this.....

Its my box of drawing equipment.. stuffed away in a black box... What your looking at is about 32 years old and my drafting / architecture kit. In good shape.. with glow in the dark initials in the top left corner and punch tape name there in red.. so old!

Aside from some graphite marks in the creme foam in the top everything else is in great condition. It is ready to be used as it was.. who knows when I put it away. I can do on Visio in seconds what I did with these in hours back when.... No real life to it but...Oh and..line size is very important. I remember grading on the uniformity and correct width of lines in drawings when I was my teacher's aide in High school.

All the templates for doors.. windows, bathrooms and such... plus an eraser shield as well as a Pentel pencil case.

French Curves by the handful. 

Neon orange triangles... and that blue thing.. what the heck is that....

That my friends is a ( was ) very expensive flexible french curve. Still works too.

Below that is two boxes of colored pencils.. still sharp and ready to go.. one box of Venus pencils.. some .5 ink pens and lead as well as a strange but useful thing in the middle...

Its an electric eraser!  Sheesh!  Still works too.

I have no clue what this lip balm is doing in there but yes it still smells of Dr Pepper and berry something... 

They don't test on animals... 

You are going to ask me now what I did with it all... 

I .... Put....It....Back... In...The...Box...

and closed the lid. Its tucked away.

Then I found this...

Not sure what I will use it for but it looks great and has some weight to it. 

Maybe I'll fling it at someone.

Oh.. Found this... total gold mine... 

Dunno whats on it.

and this too..

Again.. major mystery....

I remember that I put a picture of the Atrisco Vista sign on my blog yesterday... I put the unedited one there .. here is the editing version...

Nice and tone'y... As that awesome friend said... You're going to start looking at the world like that... Is that a bad thing.... I don't think she was saying it was a bad thing.. but... a different thing... I'm different!

Izzy says... your a cushion.. don't try to change now.

Enjoy your Saturday!

Not too many art stores left...

http://www.swcustomacrylics.com/

I do not count hobby Lobby as an art store.. as I do not call Walmart a gourmet fine food store.

http://www.draftingsuppliesdew.com/

http://www.dickblick.com/?wmcp=google&wmckw=[art%20supplies]&wmcid=adwords&cid=psgex0326132&gclid=CJrf57rztrYCFaI-MgodoSEACg

http://www.jerrysartarama.com/

And my friends blog.... 

http://sampickarddesign.blogspot.com/

Such a fun person to know.

Tablets.. iPad.. Computers.. what?!

Okay.... so what would you do?

    I have a motorola xoom.. android tablet... nice... compact...

http://www.motorola.com/staticfiles/Consumers/xoom-android-tablet/us-en/techspecs.html

 but its android.. like the iPad it is a niche device. It does a bunch of things well... For surfing the net or reading a book or checking the weather... all good.. plus other stuff too.... as would the iPad... I think the iPad is as good if that is your choice. I have no desire to not tweak .. or I can say that the iPad is not going to let me do things my way.. and I do like to do things my way.... so... lets set that aside....

So... xoom.. great... with wi fi at home plus 3g out in the middle of nowhere....

Problem I am running into is... as much as its great its not going to do my photo editing or processing like this blog or other stuff only a windows based computer can do... what am I using now? on my lap? A laptop... its big hot and heavy. I usually do my blog here and or do some editing then I put it up.

Since I do not feel like sitting at the main computers in the other room I am forced to use this thing.

Which brings me to this... what do I do...

Should I get a tablet running windows?   Like the surface pro?

http://www.microsoft.com/Surface/en-US/surface-with-windows-8-pro/home?WT.mc_id=cpc_US-en_google_mshh&WT.srch=1&semid=ef_GGL_e_h48k05qv11j55lu59l4n_15674745669&WT.search=1

Its a full blown windows running computer that can handle everything I want to do...only one usb3 port though... and a choice of keyboards that will click on and off... or you can use the pen or your finger tips... I could see doing my blog on it and then popping off the keyboard and as a tablet and my fingers processing pictures... that would be cool...  but it only has one usb3 port.. oh and no 3g and only wifi.. no Ethernet connection.... so you would have to use wifi or a phone hotspot.  limitations... but its light enough to read a book on in bed....

There is also the Sony Duo...

http://store.sony.com/c/VAIO-Duo-11-Ultrabook-Laptops/en/c/S_D_SERIES_PAGE

The Sony duo is cheaper that what you see there but its keyboard is integrated.. the whole thing is way larger than the Xoom and the Surface but it also has two usb ports. So... its heavier too. The parameters between the surface and the Duo are so similar that its useless going into it. Woops.. forgot to add that the Duo does also have an Ethernet port as well as wifi.

Or.... or.. I can just keep doing what I am doing and upgrade the motherboards and CPU and ram in my desktops... 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.1246777

Or I can go hide in a corner and chew on the baseboards.....

Now... I went back up to the radar again this afternoon.. Not what I was supposed to be doing... I was supposed to be learning about travel paperwork and how to do it.. but .. a crashed radar is more important... we have a very intermittent problem... We drove up there and as soon as it was touched by Tony is started damn well working again.... how do you troubleshoot something that disappears as soon as you look at it.

So.. what a blown afternoon...

The morning was spent having a good time figuring out why the new little scanner the office bought me to file my paperwork with wouldn't talk to my computer... all the awesome ITO Dave figured out... it was hilarious!

Dave is a good friend and a smart feller!

Here is the scanner... I put it here cuse like I said.. its pretty freakin awesome.

http://www.usa.canon.com/cusa/consumer/products/scanners/document_scanners/imageformula_p_150_portable_scanner

Its all of 4 inches deep.. 2 inches tall.. maybe.. and about 12 inches wide... it folds out.. its solid feeling and it will freakin scan two sides at one time.. no flipping the damn page over... It will also do business cards and about thirty sheets fed at one time..

I plan on scanning every damn file in my office... I need space and there are bunches of files that are old and worth keeping but no space to keep them... hence the scanner... way happy about it... I think Dave and I scanned almost everything we could think to scan .. it took it all... except the Easter peep.. it didn't like that much.....  JOKING>>> JOKING!!

Well.. so there... my day of this and that... 

Oh as I was leaving the radar I stopped and took this picture...

Paseo Del Volcan is now Atrisco Vista... big woop!

Since you have some very cool links embedded in this blog I will not put any more links here today...

Ya got four.... that's the deal right?!  RIGHT?

Have fun people... 

Radar Daze 88

You know its been a heck of a day when you have not sat in your chair for more than 30 minutes in a day. Especially interesting day chasing a radar problem.....

Tony adjusting the dish to line up the interlocks for Az. and El.

Left side of the dish with one waveguide reaching around the front.

Back of the dish.. counterweights.. and Tony

Awesome technical... light.... lolol.. cool.

Not such an idle warning.

Feedhorn with two waveguides of Dual Pol.

Access door from very long stairs.

Looking down..down down... cant believe I climbed up there three times.

AME cabinet and cabling. More cool lookin.

Abstract of the ..FLOOR! Nifty huh.. Should see this big.

Gloves.. cause getting up the tower is not very clean... nasty really... This is one of the safety interlocks so we dont get fried.

Some of the minor cautions.... noting to worry about at all...

Test equipment.. not all of it... but.... BUTTONS!!!!!

Nothing wrong with it at all.. nope.. uh uh... right... REBOOT!

Nothing to worry about at all......

Naaa....

We had to go up the radar twice.. once to install a blower on the .. or in the...AME.. First we had to remove some jumpers that we were not told about... then.. install it.. and install a relay.. and a card we got that was supposed to be new and functional. After we closed everything up and went back to the office .. it failed hard....

so .. back up we went again. Replaced the card ( processor ) with the old one and it worked fine after we REBOOTED... well there ya go... now we are watching and waiting to see if its gonna go nuts again..

error 741

We shall see...  Plus I got to do some more tone mapping.

LINKS

http://www.roc.noaa.gov/WSR88D/dualpol/

cool look at it.

http://earthsky.org/earth/nws-upgrades-to-dual-polarization-radar-for-better-look-at-precipitation-tornadoes

Debris!!!

http://www.weather.com/outlook/weather-news/news/articles/tornado-debris-radar_2012-03-08?page=3

Office radar page

http://radar.weather.gov/radar.php?rid=abx

Needy things

What another day.. Tuesdays sister to Mondays little brother.

Got new meds... took meds... stayed up all night unable to breath.

Love how getting the wrong meds will possibly kill you. Joy!

I still was able to get into work for five hours.

What thoughts brought to me was this.

I was getting ready to leave for the day and found that I needed to remember things again. Writing notes, rewriting notes, copying more notes. But I did remember that I needed to pass along some helpful hints on some computer software that's free. 

Here ya go...

Go to a website called FileHippo...  http://www.filehippo.com/

The portal to a lot of good software.

Top of my list...

Excellent cleaner.

Then there is this...

Antivirus....

Spybot is great for tracking down pesky crap... 

and for good stuff... dvdshrink... for shrinky stuff...

Remember that when your downloading some of the programs here that there will be pointers to what you think is the program but its crapware. Be careful. 

Its a great site but they stay afloat with the wacky things.

You honestly thought I would get through a whole blog without at least one HDR shot... hahahahaha

Funny!

Deck bench... for Eric.

L I N K S

Top Ten Best Laptops.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2369981,00.asp?obref=obnetwork

Ditto Tablets...

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2413145,00.asp?obref=obnetwork

Microsoft Windows 8

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2392889,00.asp

Top Ten Printers... yo@

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2373165,00.asp

The most mundane things...

Well the end to another day.... or darn near....

So what was up with this Tuesday... it comes down in my books as a little brother to Monday.

Since I would rather not think about the early part of the day.. and no it wasn't that bad.. mostly me... 

I fiddled around with some stuff off my phone.... ALL IN SURREAL SETTING!!!

doodling

Mo boots

Radar so High!

Try going up and down this thing twice.. it will make your legs into noodles.

Hmm.. who's balloon is this..

Atrisco Vista... more view volcano..but hay... change the darn name.

Reminder to do something with BADGES!!!

A hard case for the XBOX I never got around to using... Cool but going in the garage sale.

My 19 year old Man... He aint a boy.. he makes me pretty proud.

Little to do with me..lots to do with his good attitude.

And hospital waiting rooms are supposed to be calming?

Please!

And not making me any more calmer... 

Can we just say... no to Bio Hazards in the house?

Cranking out the edits... Shots modification on one while music and nets on the other.

Its very easy to get lost in all those windows.

One of my favorite pencils in forever.

Pentel Kerry 0.5

snap off cover like a fountain pen ( I really like fountain pens. ( I like turtles feeling here ) Comes from my 3rd year in school in England ) and has an eraser under that silver cap on the right.

Everything edited in surreal tone mapping... why you ask...

Cause I Can!

I think my eyes are about fried for today... time to rest them before Wednesdays hectic fire putting out thingy wild day.

let there be water!

lings.. like links but with a G.. that was hard.

http://www.pentel.com/

http://www.amazon.com/Pentel-Mechanical-Pencil-Metallic-P1035A/dp/B0006SW6YO/ref=sr_1_12?ie=UTF8&qid=1364950609&sr=8-12&keywords=pentel

if you ever cant think of something I would love to have.. a suggestion...

Please?

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B002P32EKO?psc=1

Jade ink!

http://www.amazon.com/Pelikan-Edelstein-Fountain-Jade-Bottle/dp/B001JYJB60/ref=sr_1_185?s=office-products&ie=UTF8&qid=1364950828&sr=1-185&keywords=fountain+pen+ink

Tunes

Just to change the subject.... hah!

When I am building computers or editing video or processing photographs or not watching the boob tube I am normally listening to music. I have purchased a massive amount of albums and a few 8 tracks.. yeah I am that old... and then I have replaced those with cassette tapes. I used to have both an Akai and Technics and Denon cassette players.... they had the ability to select the track you wanted by listening for the gap between songs. Totally future mode. Then geeee... the paradigm changed and there were CDs. Now I had to go buy all that music over again. I think the first CD I bought was Vivaldi.... after that Jethro Tull. I remember a time when I had almost a thousand CDs. Once the ability to save music on computer came into being at a rate that you could save music in a reasonable amount of space on a hard drive.... HAH... HAHAHAHAHA... What we thought was a large amount of space is ridiculously small now... and guess what... What we have now is going to look pathetic in five years. Well... SO I ripped all my CDs at 128kbps... OOPS.. well its good and you don't lose too much data / fidelity... but really you do.... Here is a link to help you understand..

http://superuser.com/questions/295970/why-rip-cds-or-download-music-at-high-bitrates-eg-beyond-192-kbps

So... had to go back and re-rip everything at a higher bit rate... 320 is where I try to go .. some things are not available at that rate but I try... which brings me to this... I looked around for a good place to buy music instead of paying massive amounts for CDs that I would just be ripping and tossing the CDs... I found this site.

www.legalsounds

Excellent site....

Tons of music... They had a lot of things I wanted and couldn't find anywhere...

Tangerine Dream... Yum!

Music that was never released in the US. 

Stan Ridgway...

There is so much here that it will take forever to go through it all.

Its worth a good long look... a very long look... look some more....

I could quote some favorite artists.. and what they say about music and their music . but I won't .. Most are pretentious asses... those that aren't usually keep quiet and let you enjoy their music. I try and lose myself in music.. I don't want to listen to a song and say.. Oh.. thats the group that thinks this.. instead of just enjoying the music.

I think I most enjoy sharing music ( not literally ) with friends.. Where we will sit and listen to something and then someone will say..well listen to this.. which leads to another group and another band... You find the most interesting things when you're not looking or just having fun...

There are other web sites out there.. there are sharing web sites too.. I avoid them as you never know what you're really downloading...  Also cloud based sites are cool.. Groove Shark.. there are others...

You never know what someone likes till you sit down and start talking about it all....

Jumbled thoughts...

Going to listen to something...

Cool!

https://www.spotify.com/us/for-music/

http://grooveshark.com/

http://creativecommons.org/legalmusicforvideos

and my fav music player

http://www.winamp.com/